Sunday, June 21, 2015

This year I have started and finished my summer vacation before the summer officially arrived.
I am not sure what the reason was, but I am sure that it was the right decision. The order of events 'before today' was as follows:

May 13, performance review at work. It is always a good review, I always exceed expectations. That's just the good little girl I am. He he he he

May 14, fly to Germany
May 15, arrive in Germany
I was born in Sulzbach-Rosenberg. The town has been polished since the year when I was born. It looks very pretty and clean now.

I have been looking for old photos of the Windschnur, but the black houses have been demolished long ago. I did find an image that shows Rosenberg with the steel factory in the background. To imagine where I was growing up, you need to imagine what it was like to live behind the the steel factory inside these exhaust clouds. The life then was not colorful and rosy. In my memory most images are black and white.

Only the summers have color. The times away from the black and white. Summer camp in the Alps, or in Sulzbach with Opa and Oma. They used to live in a small house in the back of a store, a main street store. Only steps from the the red brick building shown in the first image.
When I go home now I concentrate on the colorful memories and make new ones. The main reason this time was to visit my mother in her new home. She lives in a senior center since last July and she raves about the place.

She lives on the second floor in her own room, with some of her own furniture pieces. Since she moved in she was unable to ever leave. It was my goal to get her outside and experience something different everyday. I think I did my job well. She still remembers the time we visited her newest great-grand child Bastian, or the time we eat a Lox-sandwich at an Imbissstube. We played cards, sang songs, and went for small afternoon trips. It was not easy to rent the perfect car, a Jeep Renegade. The rental agency gave me grief, but I insisted. This car had the perfect heights for a person that could not walk. All I had to do was guide the wheelchair to the passenger door, get my mother to stand up, turn her a quarter turn so she could let herself fall onto the seat. The way out of the car was just as easy. Guide both feet outside the car and slide her forward, just a little so she can stand, make that quarter turn the other way and she could let herself fall into the wheelchair.

Some of these trip memories got captured on these pictures.

May 16:
I know my blog is about knitting intertwined with life. So her it is. On my visit this time there was a special occasion. My sister Rita turned 65 earlier this year and I knitted her something. Luckily I was able to also deliver the present in person. My newest design 'Wirtsweiher Loop' is named after a small pond behind Rita's farm house. I gave her the finished loop and the knitting instructions. You can buy the instructions in german and in english at Ravelry.com:http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/wirtsweiher-loop

May 19:
I also knitted while traveling. Every knitter will tell you that it is extremely relaxing and lends itself to knitting away some empty moments, some evening hours, or hours on the plane. My project was aimed at a special group of knitters. Since I grew-up and was taught knitting in same place they were, I've guessed that my method was new to them. I choose some self-striping sock yarn and cast on two socks to knit at the same time from the toes up. My mother used to meet with this group of very experienced knitters near her home, when she was still living on her own. One of our day trips was to visit this knitting group. I showed the ladies my recently learned method of knitting 2 socks at the same time using a circular needle. It got lots of attention.

This is a picture of the finished socks today. I thought it was a strange coincidence that my living room flowers match the color of the socks!

May 20 was spent in the senior home - they had a May day celebration planned but the rain came and the outdoor event was moved indoor. No pictures from the singing and Bavarian Tracht wearing band.
May 21, and 23, playing cards, going shopping. My mother has not been to a supermarket for at least a year. Oh boy did we do some shopping. I wheeled her through every isle twice. We ended up with bags of goodies.
May 22 was Dinner with Brothers and Sisters.

good times

Saying good buy was hard, but after many years of living away from everyone it has become easier. I don't leave Germany though without visiting my BFF.

Rita and I spent the day dining at a country restaurant and afterwards walking around in Rosenheim. Naturally I found a knitting store. The name was Woll Lust and deserved to be photographed.

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